A guide to recognizing your saints

Shia Labeouf is hot and was even hotter when he was younger and in all honesty that's what led me to purchase this film, also heard some hype about it but can't remember where. Not really one for Channing as I feel he is a typical beef cake and can understand his sex appeal yet not really appreciate

Although I don't find this the most amazing coming of age film I've seen it has it's merits mostly in its techniques from where Dito meets Mickey and the two converse, some shots are shot focusing on the window of the train and the passing city this is where the two characters have a more in depth conversation and when it back tracks and focuses on the two boys where they say what was just said but only briefly and then it cuts and goes back to the window shot where a new dialogue is started and back again back tracking this gives a dream like quality to this scene and possibly emphasis on Dito meeting a new friend. Dialogue displayed on screen against a black back drop. Meta reference with the fourth wall being broken and the characters speaking directly to the camera or viewer summing themselves up in a sentence or two. In the more intense scene or possibly one of the most intense scenes between Dito and his father and where his father has a stroke the screen flashes from the moving image to a black screen as if the TV has a pulse helping to heighten the drama.

The film grew on me and Shia puts in an outstanding performance, more worthy than any other things I've seen him in especially Transformers which requires nothing more from an actor than screaming and running and pouting, hence why a model has replaced Megan Fox, a sexy one at that.

Dito wants to escape the confinements of Lower NYC and its ghetto, his best friend is his saviour always there to protect him yet is also dragging him deeper into a world in which nothing happens, no one leaves and if they do it's either to prison or in a body bag. The girls are treated as objects and they to have to struggle along with the possibility they can get pregnant and raise a child with a father in prison, dead or simply absent. His father resents the fact he wants to leave and sees NYC as the centre of the world and try's his best to make him stay and this is what gradually pulls them apart.